A Delightfully Delectable #WIAW

While many of y’all were busy celebrating Valentine’s Day with a loved one–whether that meant a fancy night out or a comfortable night in–I was on an airplane headed to Kentucky to visit one of mymore-than-blends, Brittany. As Brittany has already done a perfect job of summarizing our time together and the food SHE (and sometimes we) ate, I will spend this What I Ate Wednesday post focusing on the delightfully delectable food–not only a riff on the title of Brittany’s blog, but a description of every meal and snack I had on my travels.Although I had, as usual, packed a veritable picnic for the plane, I didn’t munch that much. [Maybe the Diet Coke I will never deny myself on an airplane filled me up with its bubbly yum?]No worries, of course, because once we had made it back to Brittany’s house from the airport, I took full advantage of her promise of as much of the free banana and pear Chobani in her fridge as my hungry stomach little heart desired.

But both Brittany and I know the value (and joy) of a nighttime snack. Her favorite is a coconut microwave muffin, and mine is a bowl of Chobani.[Since I wasn't sent this flavor of bite, I was fig-in' excited to try it. I LOVED the real bits of dried fig in it.]

Being the house guest of a food blogger is amazingfor many reasons, but one of the best is they don’t carethat you want to have a messy bowl of yogurt yumminess every night…or that you will eat oatmeal every morning.

i don't even know what is in this bountiful box of beauty...but there was smoked tempeh + zesty tahini dressing involved

The Whole Foods salad bar didn’t stand a chance…

an all-too-common sight.

…and lunch at a Lousiville landmark brought me a taste of honey harissa drizzled on Egyptian pink lentil stew, and a salad with extra roasted veggies and olive tapenade bruschetta.

the carrot-ginger dressing you can't see because i was busy drinking it.

Visiting a fellow blogger also means you get to make special requests for dishes you’ve seen on her blog. Cushaw Stew was the first recipe of Brittany’s I ever remember craving, and it was every bit as wonderful as I had dreamed it would befor the past 6 months or so.

peanuts on stew? totally taste bud-boggling.

I was also eager to try her Eggplant Dal and Thai Green Curry. We never got around to the dal, but the curry–altered from this recipe to include green beans and butternut squash–with jasmine rice more than made up for that. Sweet squash with spicy curry is a flavor revelation.

and the basil really IS as crucial as she says.

For my last lunch before leaving, I figured I might as well keep up our trend of eating every meal out of a bowl.

not my last lunch, but i had to express my newfound love of buckwheat groats on salad for crunch.

brittany basically watched as i cleaned out her fridge. she didn't seem to mind.

As you can see, Jenn and all of you other lovely friends-through-WIAW, the food in Kentucky was incredible. If you can believe it, the time we were able to spend together was 100x better. I’m pretty sure we were both about to suffer withdrawal symptoms when I left on Sunday afternoon. How blessed and lucky are we to find someone with whom we click so immediately and completely?

This is awesome! I looove blends.
I have a list going of my hopeful blend couch surfers. Just warning you – you are on it friend.
I really want to try the fig and orange. CHO sent me pinneapple caramel and choc rasp. Both good – but I’m sure don’t hold and candle to the fig. And I love the “figgin excited”

This post makes me so happy…and so extremely green with envy at the same time! I mean, getting to spend the weekend with Brittany, tasting her delicious recipes, AND trying that orange and fig Chobani?! Waaaaaah!

But…one a more positive note…I FINALLY bought my ticket for Blend the other day! One of the perks to being couch-ridden…no excuses to get on the computer and spend an outrageous amount of money…wait, isn’t a “perk” supposed to be a positive thing? All I have to say is Chobani BETTER have bites at Blend! I want to get my monies worth!